You can see it againUnder pressure people bring back shapes and positions long after the wording has gone.
Picture superiority · Shepard 1967, Standing 1973
DELL TECHNOLOGIESDell ECS Design
The Dell ECS Design certification validates your ability to architect and design Dell ECS object storage solutions that meet real-world customer requirements. It covers platform architecture, networking, data management, cluster access, and monitoring and performance. This certification is for architects and technical consultants who design scalable, resilient ECS solutions.
Exam formatProctored exam
DeliveryPearson VUE
Free questions307
Content last reviewed 30 July 2026 · Up to date
The certification
What Dell ECS Design proves, and what it asks of you
What this certification covers, who it is written for, and what the exam itself looks like on the day.
5domains
15objectives
92concepts
What it is
What this certification is
What it validates, who it is written for, and the experience it assumes.
About this certification
The Dell ECS Design certification validates your expertise in architecting and designing Dell ECS object storage solutions. It focuses on architectural and design principles that enable you to translate customer requirements into effective, scalable solutions. The exam covers the technical components, hardware, and software of the ECS product, as well as basic sizing techniques and associated tools.
Earning this certification demonstrates your ability to design ECS solutions that meet real-world application needs, ensuring performance, resiliency, and security. It is a key credential for professionals who architect storage solutions for enterprise environments.
Who it’s for
This certification is designed for cloud architects, cloud consultants, cloud integration managers, pre-sales engineers, solution architects, storage architects, technical consultants, and technical pre-sales representatives who are responsible for designing Dell ECS solutions. These professionals typically work with customers to understand their storage requirements and design solutions that leverage ECS capabilities to meet performance, availability, and data management needs.
Recommended experience
Dell Technologies recommends that candidates complete the recommended training and have hands-on experience with Dell ECS architecture and design. Understanding of ECS platform architecture and components; Experience with ECS networking and data management; Familiarity with ECS sizing tools and techniques
The syllabus
What you’ll learn
Every domain and objective Dell Technologies measures, with the weight they carry on the exam.
The official Dell Technologies exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
ECS Solution Design Platform Architecture
- Recommend activities performed in the end-to-end process of solutions design
- Identify the node type for a given workflow or use case
- Determine the hardware requirements for a given use case or workflow
ECS Solution Design Networking
- Design an ECS networking solution to meet requirements or use cases
- Recommend the appropriate network separation deployments
- Differentiate the load balancer types and methods
ECS Solution Design Data Management
- Recommend a configuration of the ECS storage abstractions
- Differentiate between protection/replication configurations
- Design resiliency for potential failure scenarios
ECS Solution Design Cluster Access
- Identify the use cases for client protocols
- Design a multi-tenant solution using the ECS isolation features
- Identify the access control required to implement data permissions for ECS client access
- Identify the use cases for data compliance and retention
ECS Solution Design Monitoring and Performance
- Recommend the most appropriate monitoring capabilities for the situation
- Identify factors that impact performance
On the day
The exam itself
Everything Dell Technologies publishes about sitting it, and nothing we inferred.
Prerequisites
No mandatory prerequisites — this certification has no required predecessor exam or credential.
CertificationDell ECS Design
Exam formatProctored exam
DeliveryPearson VUE
LanguagesEnglish, French
After you pass
Where this credential goes next
The path Dell Technologies lays out, how the credential is kept, and where to book.
Step-by-step path to Dell ECS Design
Credential earnedDell ECS Design Certification Lifecycle status
This certification is currently active and available. Dell Technologies maintains this certification to validate current skills and industry relevance.
Exam status: ActiveMaintained by Dell Technologies
Exam registration
Register for the exam through Pearson VUE, Dell Technologies’s authorized testing partner.
Schedule your examVisit the official Dell Technologies certification page for exam policies and requirements.
View the official pageYour coach
And when you are serious, your coach Pip takes over
Your coach in the app reads what you have answered with the book closed and tells you one thing to do tonight. It will not count an answer you gave with the page open, and it will tell you when you are not ready.
See how the coach worksBefore you book
Questions people ask
Is the ECS Design exam related to the ECS Operate or ECS Deploy exams?
The ECS Design exam is part of the Dell ECS certification track, which also includes ECS Operate and ECS Deploy. Each exam validates a different skill set: design focuses on architecture and solution design, while operate and deploy cover operational and deployment tasks.
Do I need to earn a lower-level Dell certification before taking the ECS Design exam?
No. Dell Technologies does not require any prerequisite certifications for the ECS Design exam. You can take it directly, though recommended training and experience are advised.
How do I schedule the ECS Design exam?
You can schedule the exam through Pearson VUE, either at a testing center or online via OnVUE. You will need an exam voucher code, which can be requested from Dell Technologies.
Are practice tests available for the ECS Design exam?
Yes, Dell Technologies offers unproctored web-based practice tests for skills certifications like ECS Design. These can be scheduled through the Dell Learning platform.
What job roles does the Dell ECS Design certification map to?
This certification is designed for cloud architects, cloud consultants, cloud integration managers, pre-sales engineers, solution architects, storage architects, technical consultants, and technical pre-sales representatives.
Can I earn the Dell ECS Design certification by passing a different exam?
No, the Dell ECS Design certification is directly awarded by passing the D-ECS-DS-23 exam. There is no alternative exam that grants this specific certification.
Information freshness · Content last reviewed on 2026-07-30 Up to date
Practice free questions 307 questions, free, no account needed.
The curriculum
The whole exam, mapped and written
Every domain, every objective, and every concept Dell Technologies measures — each one written out.
5domains
15objectives
92concepts
67free pages
The domains, and what sits inside them
Every objective below is a page you can open and practise now, without an account.
The official Dell Technologies exam outline · checked 30 July 2026 · See the source
1ECS Solution Design Platform Architecture55 questions
2ECS Solution Design Networking74 questions
3ECS Solution Design Data Management51 questions
4ECS Solution Design Cluster Access79 questions
Identify the use cases for client protocols7 concepts · 3 pagesOpen →Design a multi-tenant solution using the ECS isolation features8 concepts · 5 pagesOpen →Identify the access control required to implement data permissions for ECS client access7 concepts · 6 pagesOpen →Identify the use cases for data compliance and retention3 concepts · 3 pagesOpen →
5ECS Solution Design Monitoring and Performance48 questions
Not a table of contents
Every line on this map already opens
In front of every objective the practice pages are already there, free and without an account. This is one objective, opened.
Recommend activities performed in the end-to-end process of solutions design6 pagesOpen →
Free in front of it
27 questions on this objective, five to a page. Every range above is a real page, open now, with no account.
Reading the map is not the same as knowing the ground
The curriculum tells you what is on the exam. Proving you know it is a different job — and it is the one the closed-book run does.
Free questions
307 questions. No account, no card.
The whole bank is open. 5 questions to a page, every answer explained, and a discussion thread on each one.
307questions
67pages
15objectives
Freealways
Start anywhereRecommend activities performed in the end-to-end process of solutions design 27 questions · 6 pages
Browse by domain
Every objective, and every page range, is a link — so you can pick up exactly where you left off.
1ECS Solution Design Platform Architecture55 questions
2ECS Solution Design Networking74 questions
3ECS Solution Design Data Management51 questions
4ECS Solution Design Cluster Access79 questions
5ECS Solution Design Monitoring and Performance48 questions
What a practice page gives you
1Five to a page
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter.
2Every answer explained
Not only which one is right — why the others are wrong.
3A discussion on each
Ask, answer, and vote. Every question has its own thread.
A question, and the idea behind it
Every question comes from a concept
These are not trivia. Each one is written against a concept in the book, so when you get one wrong there is somewhere to go and find out why.
The visual book
See it once. Carry it into the exam.
The pages shown here come from our AI-900 book — an example of how each concept is written in plain language and, where the idea needs one, drawn as a full page you can take in at a glance.
92concepts
307free questions
Why a picture, and not another paragraph
Three reasons, and each one is a real finding rather than a slogan.
You can see it againThe whole idea at onceWhere it starts, what happens in the middle, what comes out, and the mistake to avoid.
Multimedia principle · MayerThe look-alikes sit togetherThe pairs the exam tests are drawn side by side, so the difference is seen, not told.
Dual coding · PaivioWhat one page is made of
You are never asked to read a poster here — only to see how one is built. After that, every other page is legible at a glance.
1A numbered strip on top
The idea as a sequence, followed with a finger before a word is read.
2Panels for the parts
What it is, how the machine learns it, when it is the right tool.
3The trap, framed
The distinction the exam tests, given its own box instead of buried in prose.
4One line at the bottom
The sentence to carry into the exam room.
Open book, on purpose
Answer it with the picture beside you
This is the part that teaches. The illustration and the written explanation stay where they are while you work, so a scenario stops being a memory test and becomes something you can simply look at.
It teaches · it does not count
A smartphone uses AI to unlock when the owner looks at the camera. Which AI capability is being used?
AImage classification
BFacial recognition
COptical character recognition
DObject detection
Look at the five steps. Detect finds a face, align straightens it, encode turns it into numbers, search compares it with a stored face, and decide answers one question: is this the same person? Classification would only say “a face”. Detection would only draw a box. Neither decides whose.
Then the page shuts, and it starts counting
The same questions come back with the book closed — that run is the one that counts. After it, your coach picks one thing for tonight, sized to the time you have, and brings pages back before you lose them.
Testing effect · Roediger & Karpicke 2006 · spacing effect · Cepeda et al. 2006
Official resources
Straight from Dell Technologies
Where the exam is defined, scheduled and scored.
2official links
92concepts mapped
The source
Dell Technologies’s own pages
We link to them rather than repeat them, so nothing here goes stale behind them.
Checked against the source
Every objective on the official Dell Technologies outline already has questions here
We build from the official skills outline, not from a summary of it — 15 objectives, 92 concepts written under them, and free questions against every one. When Dell Technologies changes the outline, this page changes with it.
15objectives on the outline→92concepts written→307free questions
An official page tells you what will be asked. It cannot tell you what you will get right.
That is the only question worth answering the night before, and no link answers it. You answer it by taking the questions with the book closed, and seeing what comes back.